Thread: AlphaOmega (AO) Review

AlphaOmega.me | AO | General | Ratioless | 2010/2011
http://www.alphaomega.me/

IRC
Non SSL = /server irc.alphaomega.me:6667
SSL = /server ssl.alphaomega.me:+7000

Channels
#AlphaOmega (Main)
#AO.Announce (announce)
#Athena (pre)
#Atlas (support)
#AOBots (bots)
#Orion (recruitment)

AlphaOmega is a new tracker, started by former members and staff on a few top name private trackers. They have access to major groups and have a lot of auto-uploaded material each day. Apart from great pretimes, every new torrent is also seeded with the help of powerful seedboxes, which grants users great speeds. The number of torrents and users grow by each day.

The design is very clean, yet very simple. Almost everything is easily found and accessible. Things have changed in the last month that AO has been up and running. We have seen them go from a General Ratio Tracker to a General Ratio Free Tracker which puts it amoungst just a very select few.

AO seems to have the goal of establishing themselves in the private tracker world. Even if it might still be a long way to the top, they have made a good start, and count on them being a very serious competitor within the few months to come.

Introduction

Categories and torrents



Good pretimes and lots of torrents (see below for statistics). As you can see the number of leechers/seeders is slowly but steadily increasing, compared to when this review was first written. The categories are more than enough to help you browse through the torrents.

Overall stats.: (as of 27/12/2010)

Total torrents.......: 7,937 (24/01/2011)
Total size........: 12.27 TB
Total files........: 313,020

Mean torrents per user...: 1
Mean torrent size..: 2.35 GB
Mean files per torrent..: 59
Mean filesize.....: 41.12 MB


Requests



Requests can only be made when you reach a certain user class (which you do by increased upload stats).

Forums

A lot of new forum sections, as well as an increased acticity due to the increased number of members. It's starting to evolve more and more into a community, and the staff and users alike are very helpful. The suggestions holds a decent amount of activity and it seems as if the staff really listen to the suggestions of the users (one example would be the idea of a change to a ratioless tracker, an idea that has been present in the forums since the start of the tracker).

Staff

Staff, categorised according to greek mythology.

Top 10



A welcomed addition to the site.


Rules



Nothing unique with the rules really, just as any other tracker, although they have been updated since the start. Might be a good thing to edit the rules according to the new ratioless system, but I'm betting that it's on its way (there have been a lot information on the subject here on TI).

IRC rules

IRC Mibbit



FAQ/Wiki

An updated FAQ/Wiki with exstensive information and everything you need to know before getting started. This has also been updated with A LOT of information since the startup.




User profiles

Clean design, with a good overview of the user information.


Invitations

Right now invitations are easy to come by, when AO first opened they were giving out 20 invites to everyone, this changed in December when they started to only give out 2 invites per person. According to the AO-staff this will also change again in the not too distant future, where everyone apparantely will be having all invites reset and a maximum of 1 or 2 invites will be issued per person.

Invite tree

Donations

The donation system resembles that of most other trackers, and AO seems to be getting a good amount of donation to help the tracker stay up and running.

Inbox

Private message

Personal RSS

It took some time, but now, AO has got an RSS feed up and running, so now everyone can enjoy the freedom of downloading what they desire when it is released.


Conclusion

Originally Posted by ss1891 original conclusion

The content, as well as the pretimes are very good, and should be comparable to some of the already established top general trackers. The use of good seedboxes is an effective way of attracting new members with great speeds and availability. The activity will increase with the increased amount of members, so that's not really a huge concern at the moment.

What would be welcomed is some more information on user classes, potential freeleech torrents (they have freeleech torrents, but I haven't been able to find any information regarding freeleech), and some sort of bonus system. I really do think that new users can look forward to some new functionalities and improvements in order to compete further, although I can't really say for sure. The implementation of a request system seems to be on its way, considering they have rules for requests.

Personally, I think AO is one of the few new general tracker that will be able to compete with the best trackers in a while.

Content: 4/5 - Good content that can compete with established general trackers, although I would still combine it with maybe TL or any other solid tracker.

Community: 1/5 - Still a very small community with low activity. But it continues to grow.

Speeds: 5/5 - Great speeds, largely thanks to the seedboxes. Hopefully new members will be able to increase seeding and keep the good speeds up

Since that was written, AO has come far. The one thing I still personally miss and would like to see implemented is a home/start page (and maybe, but just maybe another stylesheet alternative) (these have now been implemented). Other than that, I can't really think of anything other for this tracker to get better overall. Sure, there are always things that can be improved, but since AO went ratioless, it established itself as one of my absolute favourite trackers, with very few downsides.

Since startup it has been constantly growing, and keeps on doing so to this day, and my personal prediction still is that it will establish itself as one of the really great trackers in a few months time.

Community wise, not every community gets better due to an increased amount of members. In AO's case, I the additional members were definately needed, and I think that new members are needed still. They've come far in a short time though, and the community is starting to take shape with growing forum activity and an active IRC channel.

Content wise I personally haven't noticed that big of a change, there is still a good amount of great quality content, whilst the staff are currently recruiting new uploaders. Although good already, I'd say that there is room for a big improvement on this front, which we probably can await due to the recruitment and increasing number of users.

What about the speeds then? Apart from trackers here in my home country, AO is one of the few trackers which maxes out my bandwidth. The seedboxes had a negative effect in that it was hard competing with them for upload, but now that the tracker has gone ratioless, it's not that big of a deal anymore.

In conclusion, I think AO is a good tracker for anyone not wanting to go through the hassle of trying to obtain an invite for any 'hard to get'-tracker. People new to torrenting have also got a solid first choice, since there's still open registration (until January 1st) and a lot of invites after that date.

Community: 4/5 (The community is a lot more active compared to just a few weeks ago)
Content: 4/5
Speeds: 5/5

Almost all pictures in this review have been provided by AO staff, so don't worry about them not being edited.

Thanks for the nice review and i will elaborate on some of the things you have said.

Not much to say about the rules really, as it's basically like any other tracker. What I do miss is some kind of FAQ section.

This is being written as we speak, but as you know to get everything working in order it does take time, correctly linking to the right places and having all the correct information so we do not confuse our members.

I would also love to see some kind of bonus system implemented, as well as user classes. I do think that these will be implemented at a latter stage.

The bonus system is something that we are talking about and we are not sure if we will implement one or not, we are still open for suggestions from our members because that is who we are here for. So please do let us know if you have any, in our Suggestions Forum.

Userclasses & Promotion (promotion levels not yet been set)

Mortal - n00b
Philosopher
Gladiator
Giant
Olympian - Uploader
Deity - VIP
Argonaut - First Line Support (FLS)
Titan - Moderator
Demi-God - Administrator
God - SysOp


These are subject to change at any time, promotion requirements are still to be set but more than likely anyone under a ratio or 1.0 will only be of the User/Member class.

A lot of the rules (Do's and Don'ts, useful links, How to guide etc) can be found in the Tutorials section of the forum which I think makes it a bit messy and hard to find.

This being said in the Wiki there is a link to the Tutorial Index which clears up the messyness of it. All tutorials have to be placed somewhere and they are placed into the forum so they can be searched for individually or as a group. Once the FAQ is ready this will have links to all the main sections of the site that is needed.

Combining it all in a FAQ/Rules section would be much easier and more accessible for new members.

With the growning number of members to the site we are always looking at making the site more user friendly and we are constantly throwing ideas around amoungst the staff, this is one of many that are being trown around at the moment.

What would be welcomed is some more information on user classes, potential freeleech torrents (they have freeleech torrents, but I haven't been able to find any information regarding freeleech), and some sort of bonus system.

As mentioned earlier the Userclasses are a work in progress and once finalised will be released and information will be added to promotion requirements. Freeleech torrents are marked by Freeleech, at the moment it is being coded into the site so users will be able to search for freeleech only content. Freeleech will be given for special events pretty much like any other site. As an added bonus all content that comes in Pack or is 2 or more Years old *(anything pre 1st December 2008)* will be set as Freeleech

Freeleech Examples:

24.Complete.Boxset.DVDRip.XviD-AO
True.Blood.S03.HDTV.XviD-AO

Right now content that you see set as Freeleech have been selected by Staff, this is as another welcome gift to our new users which allow them to gain some files they may want and to also build a ratio. This will continue for around the next week until signups have closed.

I really do think that new users can look forward to some new functionalities and improvements in order to compete further, although I can't really say for sure.

Yes we do have some special things in store for all our users, but these thngs take time and we do hope that our users will please bear that in mind, while understanding not everything can come at once.

The implementation of a request system seems to be on its way, considering they have rules for requests.

This is another thing that is being implemented, there was a few issues with the request system so it has been removed for now to be fixed and once it is working again you can rest assured that it will return. Requests will work on the basis that you can add bounties so users can fill them and then gain an added bonus. Other users are able to add to that bounty. Thus making it more benificial to the request filler.

Anyway with all that said we the staff at AO would like to thank you for your wonderful review of our site and we do hope that you and our other valued users continue to support us through the changes that will be implemented as soon as they are ready

Kindest Regards

The AO Staff

i have just read about this tracker on FileShareFreak signed up and tried it and here is my mini review:
although there isn't a lot of user the amount of content and speed makes up for it it seems that all the latest releases are there and when i try one of them i was able to max out my 12 mbps line from the first 50 torrents 3 were freeleech

Iron.Man.REPACK.720p.BluRay.x264-SEPTiC
Glory.Daze.S01E02.720p.HDTV.x264-CTU
Promo.Only.Express.Video.November.Week3.2010.NTSC. MDVDR-iNDiCA

the only thing that i didn't like is the fact that there is no exact way to tell when the torrent was added (each torrent ‘date added’ is measured in hours witch mean that you can't tell whether the torrent was added 2 hours ago or 2:59 hours ago)

my conclusion:
i'm going to keep an eye on this tracker as it got the potential to be one of the best scene trackers

Originally Posted by dante14

i have just read about this tracker on FileShareFreak signed up and tried it and here is my mini review:
although there isn't a lot of user the amount of content and speed makes up for it it seems that all the latest releases are there and when i try one of them i was able to max out my 12 mbps line from the first 50 torrents 3 were freeleech


the only thing that i didn't like is the fact that there is no exact way to tell when the torrent was added (each torrent ‘date added’ is measured in hours witch mean that you can't tell whether the torrent was added 2 hours ago or 2:59 hours ago)

my conclusion:
i'm going to keep an eye on this tracker as it got the potential to be one of the best scene trackers

Hey there,

After reading your post we have decided to change the way the timestamps are added onto a torrent upload. When it is changed it will be in the format of 01/12/10 00:00 Hrs or along those lines.

Also with regards to this we sould have our Pre times added very soon to, these will be under each torrent file name in the format of: Upload % Secs/Mins after pre

I do hope this clears some thing up, and we look foreard to seeing you all very soon.

Originally Posted by Big_Dan_E

Hey there,

After reading your post we have decided to change the way the timestamps are added onto a torrent upload. When it is changed it will be in the format of 01/12/10 00:00 Hrs or along those lines.

Also with regards to this we sould have our Pre times added very soon to, these will be under each torrent file name in the format of: Upload % Secs/Mins after pre

I do hope this clears some thing up, and we look foreard to seeing you all very soon.

Great to see pretimes are gonna get added :)

Originally Posted by Big_Dan_E

This is another thing that is being implemented, there was a few issues with the request system so it has been removed for now to be fixed and once it is working again you can rest assured that it will return. Requests will work on the basis that you can add bounties so users can fill them and then gain an added bonus. Other users are able to add to that bounty. Thus making it more benificial to the request filler.

UPDATE

The request section is now up and running. Also we have added Top 10 lists.

The layout of the site is clean, fresh and easy to navigate around. I already managed to upload my first 12.5GB hehe. There are some details to be fixed around i guess but this is normal for a new tracker i think.

P.S. I had the option to upload torrents some days ago but now it's gone.Is this normal or it is a bug?

Originally Posted by tel1os666

The layout of the site is clean, fresh and easy to navigate around. I already managed to upload my first 12.5GB hehe. There are some details to be fixed around i guess but this is normal for a new tracker i think.

P.S. I had the option to upload torrents some days ago but now it's gone.Is this normal or it is a bug?

Uploading is for Official AO Uploaders only.. If you want to be able to upload you have to speak to a Titan, Demi-God or God to see if you fit the Criteria.

I hope this helps.

Originally Posted by Big_Dan_E

Hey there,

After reading your post we have decided to change the way the timestamps are added onto a torrent upload. When it is changed it will be in the format of 01/12/10 00:00 Hrs or along those lines.

Also with regards to this we sould have our Pre times added very soon to, these will be under each torrent file name in the format of: Upload % Secs/Mins after pre

I do hope this clears some thing up, and we look foreard to seeing you all very soon.

glad to hear that i also did more testing today with tv shows that i watch all of them were there within seconds form IPT and defiantly before my tv shows tracker (tvt.com & fashion.tv) i was even able to download one of them watch it and then upload it to one of the tv shows tracker.